Theos-Talk Archives (December 2004 Message tt00460)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "W.Dallas TenBroeck" 
<dalval14@e...> wrote:

 
> THEOSOPHY is called "A Statement Of Facts In Nature."
> 
> THEOSOPHY has only one answer for any question. It does not deal 
in the
> confusion of opinions. 
> 
> THEOSOPHY as a statement of : The Laws of Nature and Life doesn't 
change.
> 
> Events that affect Karma (either individual or collective) make for 
changes
> and those changes produce effects -- and, those can be tracked and 
expressed
> by using that great universal LAW -- which inevitably and 
minutely, tracks
> them all, just as it has always been doing.  
>  
> For this reason we find in the SECRET DOCTRINE that there are two 
broad
> aspects:

> 1	DOCTRINES, LAWS AND AXIOMS (facts)
 
> 2	HISTORY

> Did you have some other question in mind?


Dear Dallas:

No, my question remains: can Theosophy evolve? 

Perhaps one could say, tentatively, that its essential principles are 
timeless ("eternal verities") but that Theosophy as a TEACHING 
undergoes changes in its presentation throughout history. There are, 
for example, differences between the teaching of the Upanishads and 
Shankaracharya and, say, the Buddha's and Nagarjuna's. There is 
Theosophy in all of them but the presentation and emphasis differs. 
This may be due to the prevailing cultural world view in which the 
teaching was given as well as the essential needs of the humanity at 
that time. It is possible that Theosophy, as a teaching, adapts 
itself to the socio-cultural reality of the age to which it is 
presented.

Please consider the following statement by HPB and note the 
expression "the teaching is offered as it is understood". She also 
highlights the need for interpreation, which may be an individual 
exercise, an exercise suggested by the teaching itself!


"All the words and sentences placed in brackets in the Stanzas and 
Commentaries are the writer's. In some places they may be incomplete 
and even inadequate from the Hindu standpoint; but in the meaning 
attached to them in Trans-Himalayan Esotericism they are correct. In 
every case the writer takes any blame upon herself. Having never 
claimed personal infallibility, that which is given on her own 
authority may leave much to be desired, in the very abstruse cases 
where too deep metaphysic is involved. The teaching is offered as it 
is understood; and as there are seven keys of interpretation to every 
symbol and allegory, that which may not fit a meaning, say from the 
psychological or astronomical aspect, will be found quite correct 
from the physical or metaphysical." (SD, vol. 1, footnote to stanza 1)


The following passage of the Mahatma Letters also shows how the 
occult or esoteric teaching evolved to adapt itself to new realities 
brought into existence by the progress of science. At the end of the 
quote there is a suggestion that the interaction between the teaching 
and an aspirant is a profoundly dynamic one, with the teaching 
relating to different individuals differently:


"Why is it that doubts and foul suspicions seem to beset every 
aspirant for chelaship? My friend, in the Masonic Lodges of old times 
the neophyte was subjected to a series of frightful tests of his 
constancy, courage and presence of mind. By psychological impressions 
supplemented by machinery and chemicals, he was made to believe 
himself falling down precipices, crushed by rocks, walking spider-web 
bridges in mid-air, passing through fire, drowned in water and 
attacked by wild beasts. This was a reminiscence of and a programme 
borrowed from the Egyptian Mysteries. The West having lost the 
secrets of the East, had, as I say, to resort to artifice. But in 
these days the vulgarization of science has rendered such trifling 
tests obsolete. The aspirant is now assailed entirely on the 
psychological side of his nature. His course of testing — in Europe 
and India — is that of Raj-yog and its result is — as frequently 
explained — to develop every germ good and bad in him in his 
temperament. The rule is inflexible, and not one escapes whether he 
but writes to us a letter, or in the privacy of his own heart's 
thought formulates a strong desire for occult communication and 
knowledge. As the shower cannot fructify the rock, so the occult 
teaching has no effect upon the unreceptive mind; and as the water 
develops the heat of caustic lime so does the teaching bring into 
fierce action every unsuspected potentiality latent in him." (ML, 
136, chronological)

Looking forward to your comments.


Pedro